


Extra Space for Travellers

by Prinzenhasserin



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Interplanetary Travel, POV Alien Character, Piracy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 20:12:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10771599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prinzenhasserin/pseuds/Prinzenhasserin
Summary: Hmir, a medical doctor, is travelling back for a family event in Galaxy City, when he meets a human in need of his medical services. Not everything is as straight forward as that, though.





	Extra Space for Travellers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rosefox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosefox/gifts).



> Dear rosefox,  
> I hope you enjoy this treat, even though it's only tangentially related to your prompts. They did inspire me :P

"Attention passengers, and peace be with you, friends and enemies. We deeply apologise for any inconveniences caused while the boarding crew is dealing with an unexpected medical emergency. As the copilot, I’m deeply ashamed to say circumstances prevent me from correcting the delay in time for our arrival at the space port," the announcement over the intercom cut short, and a much less calm voice asked, out of breath, "Excuse me, is there a doctor on board?" 

Hmir wouldn't have minded a delay much. He didn’t actually want to get to Galactic City on time and had delayed his departure unto the last connecting flight on purpose, so he could neatly avoid the bulk of wedding preparations for his cousin. 

He was also an old hand at dealing with much worse flights and their delays. His departure point had been on the outer rim, where delays caused by time and space dilation could truly fuck up your travel schedule in the most unique of ways. Hmir had once arrived earlier than the transmission that had called him out, a time travel conundrum nobody could explain to any satisfaction. Instead of worrying or cursing out the space agency, he therefore watched the rather attractive space hostess, the very same who had served him hot tea earlier, running around frazzled. Her job probably didn’t usually involve medical emergencies, unlike his.

For a brief moment, he considered keeping his head down — did he really want the responsibility of endangering a life in the middle of a space warp? Not to mention his practitioners insurance was probably invalid in space, he lacked any special knowledge on decompression issues.  But then he sorted his priorities (and he did have interplanetary insurance), and he stood up. 

"I am a doctor," he said drawing the attention of the people around him, and the space hostess in particular. "What seems to be the problem?" he asked her in his calm, practised voice. If it wasn’t his field of knowledge, or a species he happened to be unfamiliar with, he could at least translate the nearest hospital's advice into the appropriate actions. Maybe he was also not the only medical doctor on board.

The space hostess waved her (really very pretty) lilac hair at him in relief, and then lead him through the narrow gangways further down the plane to the cargo hold.

"Thank you for the courage to help. We usually don’t keep paying customers here, because the environmental protocols are a bit shaky," she told him on the way, "but you know humans — this one couldn’t keep away from her livestock, she said it was sensitive to cold. "The space hostess snorted. "Well, the food is fine, it’s that human who’s an air-breath away from death. Not that she could leave the thing alone even a second for her own health."

Hmir followed her through the locked, clearly labelled door, "Reserved for staff. "  The clean surroundings of the passenger cabin gave way to the more rustic, very basic general environment of a space shuttle. They continued into the much colder, not terribly well-lit, cargo bay.

"Humans are known for growing attached to — their things," Hmir said, remembering the fact from his lessons in Anthropology. Not that he had ever applied that knowledge — he grew up a spacer, much like the attendant next to him, judging by her natural ability to navigate in this tin-can of space. Unlike the space hostess, he had every privilege his rank afforded him, and so he was much clumsier in areas without artificial gravity.

After walking through the airlock, when he first saw the hairy mass with it’s curly brown hair tipped into turquoise, he wondered for a second if maybe the space hostess had misidentified the being in front of him. Had led him somewhere else, perhaps. Of course, humans were not a homogenous species, and had in their adaptive capacity evolved to exhibit a wide range of heights, sizes, and colours. But this wasn't the first time Hmir had meet a human, and yet he'd never met one with so much hair.

Then, the ball of hair moved, and divided itself into two people. One of them, human, perhaps less pale than Hmir usually saw them-- brown, almost frizzy hair turning into a bright vivid turquoise at the tips, probably caused by some sort of algae. The human didn’t look aware, although she wasn't unconscious, and stared straight into an unfocused emptiness. 

The other creature was also an Earth descendant, reminiscent of the bears of Hmir’s own home-world. Large, with big, pointy teeth. It opened its jaw. An entire mouthful of white pointy teeth stared at him. Hmir shuddered.

He knelt down next to the human, warily eying the creature all the while. The human was cold.  

She was too cold, and also didn’t show the typical characteristics of endotherm creatures with their natural warming mechanism, like involuntary contractions. But she did show signs of consciousness, at least.

"—Cat?" the human tried to communicate, nonsensically.

"We need to move them into warmer surroundings," Hmir said to the space hostess, who looked equally wary of the large, toothy animal. 

"That, too?" she asked Hmir, and pointed one of her arms towards the bear.

"It would be most upsetting to the human to remove them from their dependent. They tend to get aggressive."

The space hostess, almost five times the size of the truly tiny human lying on the cold floor, looked sceptical. Hmir knew better to underestimate even smaller humans — they had large molars for a reason, and weren’t afraid to use them.

"Fine," she said finally. "There’s a temperature regulated escape pod we can put them in, though the captain won’t like it. It's not according to regulations." 

They were just preparing to transfer the human onto a pushcart for easier transportation, when the faint voice of another human could be heard from the airlock.

"Steph is fine, probably," they said, "it’s most likely someone else with a pet."

"Don’t you think it’s barbaric, to have them stay in the dark and cold like this?" yet another human voice replied. 

"Yeah, barbaric," the first voice replied, clearly not sharing that opinion.

"What if it is Steph, though?" And then, around the corner, another two humans arrived. One of them, the one that had just spoken, was large for a human, almost the size of the space hostess, and pale all over, even into the tips of his hair. He wrung his hands in the traditional gesture of spacers, though didn’t follow up on his non-standard greeting. "It is Steph!" he said, and ran over to his downed— friend, Hmir supposed.

He started pushing the cart into the escape pod, though how he knew that was the appropriate response was anyone's guess.

The other human was lanky, with the brightest blue eyes Hmir had seen on anyone, ever. It was the contrast with the golden skin and the long space-dark hair, that made his appearance so mesmerising, Hmir supposed. "Sorry for the interruption, Doctor," he said. "Mike had been worried. I couldn’t keep him from following after."

Hmir swallowed. He had met humans before, and he didn’t think this one had tried very hard to stop his friend, but he was flustered by the casual regard he felt with the timbre of the humans voice. "Are you alright?" the human asked, coming closer.

Hmir took a step closer to the toothy creature, and swallowed yet again. "Yes?" he squeaked. He didn’t get attacked by either of them. The creature seemed comfortable following its human into the escape pod without paying attention to anything else, and the human in front of him stayed at a comfortable distance.

Until, suddenly, he didn't. "Cool," the human said, and pulled a phaser from who knew where. "Because we need a doctor. Consider yourself kidnapped. If you can redirect us to the spare escape pod?" the last sentence he directed to the space hostess. "Please don’t sound the alarm, dear. I hate to do something terrible."

The space hostess had frozen, the typical reaction of her species to danger, and Hmir couldn’t fault her. He’d never have expected a hijacking from pirates this close to Galactic City. And human pirates, to boot. Neither had he ever expected that he himself would be one of the resources pirates were trying to hijack ."If you could lead, please?" the human said, poking the phaser into his vulnerable sides, and Hmir complied. He walked into the escape pod -- it was surprisingly roomy, and he could keep up his distance to the bear.

With the push of a button, the escape pod closed, turning itself into a fully sustainable space capsule. It was maybe a tad too warm to be entirely comfortable to Hmir, but the humans didn’t seem to feel the warmth.

One of the humans fiddled with the navigation controls, and then slowly, the pod removed itself from the shuttle. "That’s that sorted, then," the blue-eyed human said, and touched Steph. "You okay?"

"Yes, I’m fine, nothing happened," Steph replied, and sat up with only a slight groan. Hmir watched, as they touched each other for reassurance. The human resilience Hmir had heard so much about was truly exceptional, considering she'd been dangerously cold just moments before.

"Hi, I’m Kate," the blue-eyed human said then, and held out their hand, "Very sorry to have kidnapped you, but you were the only passenger with outer Rim experience! Just an unexpected bonus that you seem to know your human physique," and then showed all their teeth. Molars, just like he suspected.

In the distance, Hmir could see his space shuttle to Galactic City vanish into — well, space. Now, the prince would have to do with his second cousin as best man, because Hmir wouldn’t be making it. "I don't think this is going to go how you'll expect it to, at all," he said, with a visceral sense of doom. "I'm moderately important?"

 


End file.
